When Cameron Sutton's wife is killed by a mugger with a baseball bat, he gives up his medical practice in Boston and moves his 1 yo boys back to Colorado and the family spread. The Senator, his father, is dividing the ranch between his 4 sons so they have a place to go to but it's taking a while to get the house fully livable and in the meantime, Cam is relying on their longterm babysitter Julie Edwards to help him with the twins as he is distracted by a possible custody battle with his grandparents-in-law (who raised his late wife Sandra Barrington). His 2 yo boys are heirs to a giagantic fortune and that might be part of the reason they want custody (cuz otherwise they lose control of the trust). But Sandra's cousin Alexa Whitfield (who was raised as Sandra's sister) was with Sandra right before she died and made a deathbed promise not to let their grandparents raise the boys...
So Alexa spends a year putting her affairs in order and learning to be more comfortable with kids (she had avoided them since she learned she couldn't have babies of her own) and then shows up in Colorado and moves in with Cam to help him and to keep her promise. Only bad things start happening just after she gets there (like a bull is set loose and almost kills her, a bridge explodes, the barn explodes) and someone is taking pictures of everything sending it in to the tabloids...including a picture of Cam giving in to temptation and kissing Alexa. The Senator proposes that Cam and Alexa get married to neutralize the negative publicity. But does Alexa mean it when she testifies she loves him? Would she really give up her sucessful worldtraveling art business for him and a ranch? And will they all live long enough to live HEA?
While I liked this one better than the last one in this series it still wasn't my cup of tea. For instance, Cam's twins and their "incomprable intelligence" - these are 2 year old boys who speak in complete sentences, have a high school vocabulary and do thinks like take apart computers by themselves! Computers! TWO years old!! Seriously. I mean if the author had them being 6yos it probably still would've raised my eyebrows but 2 was rediculous. And Alexa is the sort of person who needs to reapply her makeup at all times, including when she showers in a horse stall - and she takes joy in running up charges on Cam's credit card in revenge for him kissing her when he lets her buy some things for the house... I totally cannot relate to this woman and am kind of upset that she would do such stereotypical "little woman" things! And there's this line on page 179 "She'd told him he needn't use protection. Did that mean [...] that Alexa kept herself prepared for a serendipitous affair whenever she felt an itch?" which I kinda took to mean that women who are on birth control *just in case* are all sluts (which might be an over-reaction but I was still offended). So anyway...I was taken out of the story a few too many times to properly enjoy this.
